A gun shop clerk displays a small handgun. The U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected a challenge by gun groups to California's concealed-weapons law, which requires gun owners to get a license from law enforcement to carry a concealed handgun outside the home. less

A gun shop clerk displays a small handgun. The U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected a challenge by gun groups to California's concealed-weapons law, which requires gun owners to get a license from law ... more

WASHINGTON — Republican-backed legislation that would allow people to carry their concealed weapons across state lines if they have a permit to do so in their home state now heads to the Senate after winning approval in the House with no support from Democrats.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has introduced companion legislation in the Senate, where Republicans have a 52-48 majority, allowing Democrats to block legislation with a filibuster that requires 60 votes to break.

But California Rep. Mike Thompson, a gun-owning St. Helena Democrat who battled the bill in the House, said blocking the Senate measure will be a “heavy lift.” “The American people need to speak out and say ‘whoa,’” Thompson said.

Now Playing:

U.S. President Donald Trump says stricter gun control measures might have led to additional casualties during a mass shooting at a South Texas church. (Nov. 7)

Media: Associated Press

The House bill passed on a mostly party-line 231-198 vote, with all 14 California House Republicans, 13 of whom co-sponsored the legislation, voting “yes.” The bill was paired with a modest update to federal law requiring background checks that would strengthen reporting requirements for gun buyers who have criminal backgrounds or a history of mental illness.

Under the legislation, people who own permits would be allowed to carry concealed weapons across state lines, regardless of laws such as California’s that tightly restrict carrying hidden weapons.

To make their case, supporters cited the Nov. 5 massacre of 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in which a man living near the church grabbed his rifle and engaged in a gunbattle with the shooter.

The argument that armed people are in the best position to neutralize a mass shooter has been pushed vigorously by the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun-lobbying group for which the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, HR28, is a top legislative priority. The group called the bill’s passage “a watershed moment” for gun rights.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaking at a separate Senate hearing on background checks, said survivors of the Texas massacre told him, “We all had our guns, but we left them in the car” out of respect for the church. Cruz said if churchgoers had had their weapons, they could have stopped the shooter sooner.

The House bill would require every state to recognize concealed-carry permits from every other state. It would also allow people from more than a dozen states that require no permits at all to carry hidden weapons to bring them into California and other states with stringent restrictions.

“Now we’re all going to shoot each other, no holds barred,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., as she argued against bringing the bill to a vote. “This is not the Congress I’ve known and loved all these years, but it’s the one we’ve got.”

Critics said the bill would allow untold numbers of “bad guys” to carry guns anywhere.

“A convicted violent criminal will be able to carry a concealed, loaded firearm in every community,” said Thompson, who has headed his party’s task force on firearm violence. He said some states allow teenagers, stalkers and other domestic abusers who have violent misdemeanors on their records to carry concealed weapons.

“People need to know what’s going on,” he said.

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming and Vermont are all “permitless states” that put almost no restrictions on gun ownership. Several other states have only loose concealed-carry laws.

California issues concealed-carry permits, but only if approved by local police, and requires gun buyers to submit to background checks and other restrictions. Sheriff’s offices in rural areas typically grant concealed-carry permits to those claiming a need to pack a gun, but law enforcement officials in cities are far more restrictive. Most of those able to secure such permits in places like San Francisco and Oakland are police officers and security guards.

California’s law survived a legal challenge by gun groups, as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take it up in June.

Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock (Stanislaus County), said California does “a very good job” of requiring training and background checks for concealed-carry permits, and his only concern with the bill is that he’d “like to see other states do the same.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said in a statement, “If opponents of the Second Amendment want to take people’s rights away, they should do it the old-fashioned way: convince a supermajority of the American people and amend the Constitution. Otherwise, we have a duty to defend the Constitution as it is — all of it.”

Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat who represents a swing Sacramento district, said he had no problem voting against the bill. “I don’t want the laws of Alabama to supersede the laws of California,” he said.

The issue has flipped traditional party positions on federalism and the right of states to make their own laws.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the concealed-carry legislation “uses federal power to import the laws of one state into another state.”

Republicans said the law is no different from the requirement that each state recognize driver’s or marriage licenses issued by other states. The bill would give people carrying hidden guns “the right to travel across states just like driver’s licenses do,” said Brian Babin, R-Texas.

“The fact of the matter is the Second Amendment is a constitutional right that extends to all Americans,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. “It is the federal government that has the right to determine what can be transported across state lines.”

Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., noted that the vote came just eight days before the fifth anniversary of slayings of 20 students and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Calling the legislation “an outrage and an insult to the Newtown victims,” Esty said the concealed-carry bill is the only gun legislation that Republicans have allowed Congress to vote on since the school killings. Etsy said 170,000 Americans have been killed in gun violence since then.

Thompson said he was surprised that 14 Republicans voted no on the bill, which was more than Democrats expected, while only six Democrats voted in favor, none from California. Nonetheless, Thompson said Democrats may be unable to block the legislation in the Senate because there are “a bunch of Senate Democrats in red states with very tough election prospects” who might join Republicans to expand concealed carry.